


When This War is Almost Won

by everybreatheverymove



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, F/M, Jon-centric, Light Angst, No Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 11:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9438950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybreatheverymove/pseuds/everybreatheverymove
Summary: When the Wall falls and Jon is away South, Sansa is captured by the Night King; the moment Jon learns of her capture. POV-oneshot.-This is retribution for his continued fight against the cold winds, against the winter's truest threat. This is retribution for challenging a stronger, greater leader. Whether he chose this path or was forced upon it matters not. All that matters are those words."Lady Sansa Stark was taken in the night by the enemy."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a prompt, originally posted as part of 'The Untitled Jon and Sansa Project', but I feel it stands better alone.

He doesn't know if his heart has ever beaten so fast, has ever thumped so rapidly beneath his chest. He doesn't know if his mouth has ever ran so dry, if his coherent thoughts have ever stopped haunting him.

He thinks that maybe the last time he felt this way was when he had been allowed a second chance at life, at fixings his - and everyone's - mistakes. He thinks that maybe the warm blood pumping through his system has only ever flowed so easily, so thirstily upon revival, resurrection.

But this is no resurrection. This is retribution.

_"Lady Sansa Stark was taken in the night by the enemy. Lord Robett Glover and Lord Wyman Manderly are preparing your resting army to bring her home. Princess Arya Stark shall rule over Winterfell as Lady in her absence."_

This is retribution for his continued fight against the cold winds, against the winter's truest threat. This is retribution for challenging a stronger, greater leader. Whether he chose this path or was forced upon it matters not. All that matters are those words.

_Lady Sansa Stark was taken in the night by the enemy._

He reads them over again, and once more for good measure when they still refuse to sink in, to be accepted into his heart.

He doesn't remember the last time his heart has ever beaten so fast, has ever thumped so loudly, so heavily beneath his chest.

Perhaps it was upon his awakening, his rise from the land of the dead where he had once so longed to remain.

Or perhaps it had been when he'd seen her in the courtyard at Castle Black all those moons' turns ago.

Matted hair and quivering lips and freezing cloak, she was home. She had been his reason, to smile and get up and fight for as long as he could. A charging cavalry and a madman had never made his blood run so warm, only cold.

He had naïvely promised to win their home back , and foolishly sworn he would keep her safe, protect her. Despite all of her refutals; he would take her home and keep her safe.

He did, for a time. And it was sweet.

It had been so sweet, to see her, to see family, to provide protection for someone who had forgotten how to feel safe. She hadn't needed it, not truly. She was stronger than she looked, calculating and wise where he was reckless and brave.

She had been home, though, and he needed her. He needed her to stay home, and stay safe, to never leave him again.

The ache he had felt upon seeing her again overwhelmed him, overshadowed any small sense of longing he ever felt on the occasion he had missed her.

They were never close, were never true siblings. Until the world robbed them near blind and they were all each other had left in the world.

His heart never thudded at the memories of their childhood, never ached at the thought of her being gone. She had been a distant memory, once upon a time, little more than a reminder of what was once home and familiarity. He hadn't longed.

But she had appeared, all scarred and tired and lovely and lonely, and he had found home, had patched over a wound he hadn't known to be bleeding.

He had promised her that they would return home, and they had done so as a pair. He had promised to keep her safe, and he had done so as a fool.

_You went South. You left her._

He had followed council, advice. He had ventured farer south than he would have cared to trek, and paid a price for it.

_Lady Sansa Stark was taken in the night by the enemy._

He doesn't want to know how it happened, how a creature so blue and cold and cruel managed to steal the one thing that had soothed his soul for so long. He doesn't want to know how someone so inhuman, something so fantastically malevolent had stolen his heart's beat.

He lived because she breathed, they won because he kept his promises and she made some of her own. They won because he is no one without her, without his family, without the Lady who is half-sister, half Queen to him.

She is to rule, to watch over their home and keep it safe in her womanly fragile but ruthlessly agile hands. She is to smile because he had kept her safe, because he kept his promise. She is not to be put in harm's way and submit to yet another brute, to a being so cold he is true ice.

Her icy stare will match the Night King's, surely, but her pessimistically romantic heart will only haunt Jon, will only remind him of his shattered promise.

"I'm going back."

He has been South for too long, has been ignoring his greatest responsibility in favour of this kneelers' one. His home is North. His heartbeat is in sync with the breaths that escape past those lips of hers, when the solar is freshly warm from an argument he has let her win. His pulse is steady when he is home, when home is her, and he wants his pulse to slow.

He lived because his heart beat to the rhythm of her breath, and his heart is aching.


End file.
